If I Could Turn Back Time

Those of you who live in Sydney’s Western Suburbs must have felt pretty special last March, pretty special indeed.

NSW had a new Premier in Barry O’Farrell, the Liberals were in power and things were going to change out west,Barry said so. To make sure we all knew how determined he was to make a difference out west, Barry held his victory party in Parramatta after the election. Then, upon realising that he had no talent whatsoever in his party, appointed himself as Minister For Western Sydney

The residents of Western Sydney must have been excited at the special attention they were sure to receive.

Well, I think Sydney’s West would now be wishing they could turn back time about now.

It seems all of Barry’s posturing was just foreplay, and he has now decided it’s time to thoroughly screw the west. Alas, I am quite sure this is not the special attention the residents of Sydney’s West hoped for.

One of the first things Barry did when he took office was to scrap the Western Express Rail Line, then he pulled funding from Blacktown hospital, but now comes the biggest shock of all… Barry is looking to turn Penrith into a nuclear waste dump.

Yes you read that right, a Nuclear Waste dump.

It seems some rich people over at Hunters Hill have an issue with somewhere near 5,000 tones of radioactive waste in their neighborhood, and who can blame them? I wouldn’t want to live next door to Chernobyl either…

Hunters Hill for those of you who don’t know it is one of Sydney’s richest suburbs. It has many of Sydney’s most exclusive harbor side properties, and is Liberal heartland.

In typical Liberal fashion Barry has decided the best solution to this problem is to take the radioactive waste from Liberal heartland and dump it on those lesser people who live out west.

I guess we should have expected this type of environmental terrorism from a Premier who immediately after taking power, carved up and effectively shut down The Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water.

It is not just Barry either. The NSW taxpayer is also paying the extra salary for a Parliamentary Secretary for Western Sydney also, his name is Ray Williams.

So where is Ray in all of this? Missing in action it seems. Ray seems to have been happy to take the extra money for a Parliamentary Secretary role, and then taken up a second job, impersonating a mute.

My mother used to say if it wasn’t wise, then don’t say it. Ray Williams, a man known for having Verbal Diarrhoea, and for being accused of bribing a church pastor, has heeded that advice and is not saying anything.

This is such a disgrace it is hard to contemplate.

For starters Ray Williams should resign and go back to driving buses. Ray’s total inability to show any guts, or stand up for the people he is supposed to represent is reprehensible. As a Parliamentary Secretary, Ray has proved to be a total waste of space. It would seem Ray, you are one of those “Fat Cats” that you are always referring to.

So what is supposed to be happening with the waste?

Well, it would be moved by a convoy of trucks to a Kemp’s Creek waste centre near Penrith. Once there the waste would be processed and disposed of. This realistically means it will be buried.

The convoy of trucks would transport the radioactive waste through the suburbs of Sydney, past houses, schools, and parks where children play. Let’s hope there are no accidents or spills. But I would like to request that the trucks detour past Barry’s house, just so we know he has put every effort into safety.

O’Farrell made an election promise not to dump this problem on Sydneys West, and still insists it is something he does not want to do. Barry though, tell us that he has been advised that Kemps Creek is the “most appropriate site” for the radioactive material. I wonder if the person giving that advice lives near Hunters Hill…

Rumours that the NSW Liberal Government are funding extra wards at Penrith hospital to cope with possible birth defects, such as babies being born with 2 heads, or babies born with their internal organs on the outside, are just that, rumour. The Liberals are in fact cutting funding to hospitals in the west as part of the wests “special treatment”.

So, to the Westies amongst you, how special do you feel now?

While we can’t turn back time, we can learn from our mistakes. Bring on the next state election…Quick

“RADIOACTIVE waste dug up in Hunters Hill will not be dumped at Kemps Creek, the NSW Government announced today, but the opposition says another NSW community could now be the site where material will be dumped. “